"Baseball" Swing

[Open-Faced Club Sandwedge]

So I have a problem at this point in my swing evolution (been working with a pro for 3 lessons so far, spaced a couple weeks apart), where I have a tendency not to turn through the swing. Like I'll turn back and cock the wrists a proper amount, but then coming through I hold the club off with my hands and "put the brakes on" through impact, leading to push-slices.

My pro has a teaching technique (not sure if this is common or not) of having me take a "baseball swing", where I swing at hip-height, literally pretending I'm hitting a baseball with the golf club. When I do this, I turn through the swing and turn the hands over effortlessly and "beautifully" in his words. He wants me to feel that same type of motion, tilted downwards toward the ball. He freely admits that the exact same motion can't be done; that the tilt wrecks the effortless turn of the upright baseball swing. But he wants me to learn to replicate the same feel while hitting a golf shot.

The first few attempts were really bad, almost whiffing the ball. But after a short while I started to hit some really excellent shots; long, HIGH, slight draws. I'm not consistent with it yet because it's new and feels very different from the way I used to swing.

This goes along with the fact that I used to overswing badly, and so my backswing now feels like a 1/2 backswing to me. So my feel right now is taking a half backswing (the club's stopping just a little short of parallel, but I swear it FEELS like it stops short of vertical), and then turning through as hard as I can, letting my hands and arms passively turn over, which does happen naturally when I torque my body through as hard as I can.

What I'm looking for is feedback, particularly from the instructors on here if possible, on whether this is a healthy way to learn to swing. I feel like I'm swinging 4 times as hard as I was with my overswing, and if instead I only swing twice as hard, my arms and hands lag and I push-slice. Is this a good thing? A necessary thing for me? An unnecessary thing? A harmful thing?

-Andrew

[Taggsy]

Jeff Ritter uses the baseball analogy too.



If it works for you, and you're able to hit those long, high, slight draws consistently with it, then it's all good.

[Open-Faced Club Sandwedge]

Jeff Ritter uses the baseball analogy too.

Oh, it's still got a long way to go before I'd call it consistent. I was just saying I got to the point yesterday in the lesson where I did hit a few very good shots with it.

-Andrew

[jamo]

Not in the sense of what you guys are talking about, but up until 3 years ago I had a baseball swing. I would take a full swing but during my finish my feet would look like this: